


The Victor

by Aulani



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Closet Sex, Domination, F/M, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood Spoilers, Healthy Relationships, Mating, Oral Sex, Possessive Behavior, Post-Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal, Predator/Prey, Protective horny catboy is a mood, Semi-Public Sex, Zenos is really a sensual creep, fashion porn, help me I have no idea what I'm doing, no beta we die like men, soul bonds if you squint, there's still fluff here, what the hell is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:29:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26955133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aulani/pseuds/Aulani
Summary: -----------“You are vile,” she bit out. Dropped emphasis on each word. The facets of her own plastered smile cracked like crystal. She felt the pads of his fingers tighten again to her waist.“And yet, what is this flush about your skin? Such a heady, heavy concoction. The Huntress should deserve to partake in the lapped drink of prey. To be made…subservient after the chase. However, tis the pity. For…” he leaned down and his mouth brushed the curve of her ear. “You also smell like that cat.”-----------
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Original Character(s), G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light, Zenos yae Galvus/Warrior of Light
Comments: 7
Kudos: 82





	The Victor

**Author's Note:**

> "Cry "havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war."
> 
> \- Julius Caesar, Act III: Scene I

He hadn’t been a stranger to these diplomatic occasions. Monotony and tedium a common thread among all of them. For they often involved trading disputes, legalities behind proper measurements. The weighing and barter of goods and services. G’raha Tia, in the guise of the Exarch could find confidence and assuredness in any manner of intellectual debate; he’d been a student first and foremost after all. Scholar and historian when he’d stepped new and breaking into the world.

But this? He tugged a bit at his collar. _This was torture._

“I hate this,” the twin at his side almost seethed through clenched teeth. Her eyes furious and smoldering. Pegged hard on the swirl of movement held to the other side of this grand room.

Glittering gold and ivory swirls of pearl on a floor of pale marble. It would have been beautiful – if not for the taint that their grandiose and “ _esteemed guests”_ had brought with them. Sweeps of eyes and simpering smiles. Garlemond made their presence known, despite having never uttered a word to the Scions still waiting alongside the wall.

Zenos curling and prowling and stalking with the best of them. All predator released into the wild, searching for a _hunt._ The frail gauze of his manners holding tight across a planning smile.

“Tis not the most comfortable of situations,” Alphinaud, who had taken up residence on G’raha’s other side, answered his sister. Rushed and hushed whispers under furrowed brows. “But, they were the ones that requested the negotiations and we could not deny them. Not when they offered such a tempting olive branch.”

“I hate this,” she repeated, looking down to brush the non-exist wrinkles about her gown. The red stain as deep and full as blood. “If nothing else, dressing up for such _nonsense._ A possible opportunity for a truce is one thing – but a formal soiree? Seems excessive and moronic. Look at G’raha? He’s _obviously_ as uncomfortable as the rest of us.”

The Miqo’te in question gave a small smile in assurance. “Your concern is notable Alisaie, but I promise I am…”

“And with the way you keep looking at the door, she won’t arrive any sooner,” she continued and her frown pulled upwards at a corner instead when his mouth snapped shut. A flicker of his bright eyes that suddenly seemed to _glow._ “Have you seen her yet? The dress they gave her for this occasion?”

“Ah…I…I have not…” G’raha mumbled, with a rub to the back of his neck. The blush on his cheeks bloomed like a flower about pale skin. Alisaie smiled a bit wider. “Not since Tataru and Krile ambushed her this afternoon.”

“Hmm,” was all Alisaie said in reply. Turning back to hum further under her breath. Her brother barely continued the urge to roll his eyes.

G’raha sighed aloud, feeling tension and a strange prickle roll up his skin as the minutes stretched onwards. His long fingers pulling tight to his palm, only to release. He struggled with the odd sensations assaulting the back corner of his mind. The urge and ache to find Kalea…the narrowed of his own gaze when he watched Zenos talk in bored tones to the Sultana; Nanamo looking so bright and illustrious in gold, she might have been a tree topper on a Yule tide decoration. Cherub and angelic, with the brooding Raubahn never far from her shadow.

He was so on edge, he felt like a cat in a hot box.

“ _Horrid man,_ ” was the spitting testament of Admiral Merlwyb. Her towering figure stopping before G’raha and the twins. A shake of her back tousled ivory tresses. Dressed in the smartest of dark suits, she was all clean and pristine lines. Black and white, cut and clear as ying and yang. “I swear, why ask any one of us for a dance if you were only going to inquire of the Warrior of Light? Blundering fools the lot of them. Half are drunk and half of them would plot our assassination in a dark corner.”

G’raha felt something rush in his ears. Hair and tail beginning to stand on annoyed end. “He is… _what?”_

“There is talk that this is all this is,” the hulking figure of her grand storm marshal could certainly prove quiet when he wished. His voice barely heard over the rise and ruckus of commotion that seemed to grow in fulm. Apparently the Garlemond troops had found an affinity for Redborn Red. Their demands for an ever flowing fountain of it met with scurries from the Ishgardian servers that littered the room.

“Simply a ruse to see Kalea again. His most sought after hunt.”

Eynzahr Slafyrsyn did not mince words. His commander nodding out her grim approval, even when G’raha couldn’t hear over the blood pounding about his head. He barely registered Alisaie’s concerned glance.

“Surely there is something we can gleam from this,” Alphinaud said – ever the strategizer aloud. “We cannot let such an opportunity of intelligence go to waste. Urianger and Y’shtola thought this might be the case, but Kalea would hear none of it. She felt the reward worth the risk.”

“We shall see Master Leveilleur,” Merlwyb tilted her head. “I am sure our esteemed Lord Commander will have something for us. He is turning out to be our rather ace in the hole, with honeyed words and that visage of his, I doubt the female Garlemond officers, and even a few of the males will not be able to resist wagging their tongues for him. In more ways than one.”

“Disgusting,” Alisaie muttered.

“Ah, if you would all please excuse me,” G’raha broke outwards. Another pull at his collar. Something pooling in his stomach that threaded through his aether. Flutters of blood and heart that sounded like Kalea’s whispered voice in his ears. “I need to…excuse me.”

They all nodded, and Alisaie jerked her head in the direction of the northern doors. The ones closed shut with stained glass and a window to the world of dark stars. “That direction G’raha. Try not to drool.”

He ignored her, but followed her indication all the same. Cross the litters of long spread tables laden with food and drink. Smells and salts and wine. It was meant as another means to foster good will between them, and G’raha could not deny that there was something comforting and mending about a banquet filled to a brim with roaring fires that allowed rambunctious and celebratory behavior. In fact, if it had not been for the giant dark stain that was Zenos yae Galvus keeping his sharp, gleaming smiles in a corner, G’raha would argue that the feast would prove successful without a hitch.

He’d spied the white head of Thancred bobbing among them. The Hyur’s laughter and easy nature drawing others in. Secrets and information collected like currency. At least one of them would be successful tonight in their endeavors.

The doors pushed easily under his hands and G’raha slipped inside without notice. In contrast to the roar of noise that cascaded among the grand castle hall; here it was quiet and soft. Moonlight and starlight turning the world into shades of silver. Soft breezes that spoke of chill and autumn. Nips about skin and hair.

It smelled like snow. And like… _her._

He followed it like a moth to a flame.

Ever since his return to the First, to this body and this time…the ever growing _thing_ between himself and the Warrior of Light, _Kalea,_ had snapped tighter. Tighter. Stronger. Heavier. An ache that had no other meaning save that he _needed her._ Craved her.

_Loved her._

So fiercely at times he couldn’t think straight.

They had never given into to such Levin and aether and _want_ when he’d known her on the First. As the Exarch he’d been content to her gentle touches. Her smiles and woven fingers into his. He’d been selfish. So utterly and completely _selfish,_ wracked with guilt that she would ever deign to give him more. More than he deserved. Her affection always right there at the corner of her mouth. His and only his, but he’d been too much of a coward to take it.

He had been fated to die after all.

A heartsick, love-drowned man tempered to her gravitational star. There was a satisfaction after all, a righteousness to unconditionally adoring a woman he could never have. It would have made a good end. One he’d thought had been fated for him.

But, Kalea was never to be deterred. And when she’d finally kissed him after their fight with Elidibus it was as if everything had snapped.

His control. His aether. His very soul. It all was shattered – to only be remade again. Tied and branded and _hers._ Their colors meshed together. Crashes of sea foam upon a red-stained shore. How could he ever ignore his soul bonded then to hers? The ache and drive to be buried, burned and _drown_ in her?

To mark her as _his._ For this age, and each one after.

The third night on this star he’d stolen into her room at the Rising Stones. Love and promises and oaths sworn between them through panting breaths. Hot and heavy. _Burning._ It was all so incredibly new. Raw and primal. He ached for her…molten pooling in his stomach and swirling along his head.

He could feel the mating bond taking solid form between them with each passing day he found completion between her thighs. Each time he shattered her apart with his mouth and fingers. It was almost a tangible thing. Tasted and felt on his tongue. Flooding his heart. It had scarce been a fortnight and already he felt himself going mad for want and dominance. To make the final seal about her flesh and aether. To live with her for the rest of his days and beyond.

He wondered at times if this was how the first souls had felt. The first walkings upon this star when they’d met their very match for the first time.

At times he could scarcely breathe for it.

“G’raha,” came a voice to interject into his thoughts. “My, my. Don’t you look dashing. And… _determined._ You would not be looking for Kalea, by any chance?”

Y’shtola had found him. Arriving upon his sudden person when she’d taken the corner. The mage was dressed in silks of black. A high laced neck that spread over her elegant arms, overlaid over the lengths of her skirts to pool at her feet. Feathers reminisce of the ones she’d worn on the First woven in her hair.

“I am,” he smiled sincerely at her, giving a courtly bow that she chuckled at. “Might you point me in her direction? There is fashionably late, and then there is just _late_ after all.”

She smiled at him, coy and teasing in her colorless gaze. “Just down the length of the hallway. Tis not her fault; Urianger, Krile and Kan-E-Senna can be a talkative trio when pressed. I just only now escaped. Perhaps she just needs you to _save her?”_

She gave his shoulder a gentle push as she moved past him. He grinned brightly, though it seemed almost predatory when he thought of who was waiting just a few turns away. “Thank you Y’shtola. You look lovely yourself.”

“Mhm, I am well aware.”

Her footsteps disappeared as he drew further away from her. Following those red threads that tied him to Kalea. Whatever name you wished to give them…they were woven and wrapped tight and unbreaking. Colored like blood. Like the hues of his vibrant eyes.

“…but if he were to propose some form of occupancy the people of Doma will need to begin fortifications as precautions. Not just the shield that Hien so cleverly originated.”

“Perhaps we can take better stock of the rumors that would plunge Garlemond into a Civil War. The Emperor would not hold the titles that was previously attributed to him. That would help collapse the frail structure of power that assists him in these rather vague threats.”

“We could make those titles more of symbolism than of actual legitimacy,” _her voice_ to his perking ears. “Images are easier to crumble than legislative structure.”

“Thou dost speak the truth, but do so would require great foresight. True testament on our part. Perhaps a heavier hand is what the times doth demand.”

They turned to acknowledge his arrival, Krile pipping out a merry greeting. Kan-E-Senna ever radiant in layers of pristine white, gave him a smiling bow. He should recognize them. Of course he should…but his blood at taken to roaring about his ears. Burning through his limbs.

Molten and hot and _overwhelming._

And if the look Kalea’s eyes gave to him was any indication…he was not the only one to think their partner appeared utterly _ravishing._

“G’raha Tia,” Urianger said with a chuckle. “Tis plain we have strayed too long in private commune. I hear the feast is in full and culmination. Though, tis a deep matter that I mean to discuss with Kan-E-Senna. Such is my penchant for long conversations.”

The Elezen drew the man’s eyes away with great effort, though it didn’t last long. A quick smile and it had returned back to where it rested. Burning. Smolders around the edges of G’raha’s Levin filled gaze.

“We will go on ahead then.” He watched Kalea’s mouth move. The cherry colored lips curving and speaking to their assembled friends. Even as she moved forward to take G’raha Tia’s hand. “Less suspicious that way.”

Krile huffed out her exasperated laugh, but the Eldest Padjal simply nodded. Her smile small but sincere.

G’raha allowed himself to be tugged away then. Away from the eyes of their companions and the stoic faces of Kan-E-Sanna’s unmoving guards. Straight backed and shadowed, their masks followed the retreating pair until they were unseen. Round corners and dipped into moonlight.

“ _Wicked White,”_ G’raha suddenly growled and promptly pushed Kalea up against the wall. Starlight caught in her smiling teeth and stormy eyes. His hands bracketed either side of her head; hips pressed to glorious friction against her own. He loomed over the constant fixation of his waking and sleeping dreams, leaning down to take that _incredibly tempting_ bottom lip between his own.

“You look…” he didn’t have proper words to express how his brain was short circuiting. Especially when her clever fingers were already toying with the button at his collar. Releasing his skin to the night air. His knee pushing between her own thighs. Damning the layers of fabric that kept her from him.

“Ever the scholar Raha,” she laughed. Breath puffed over his mouth. “At least tell me if I meet your approval? If I am to face the wolves…then I would look my best and _yours_ is the only opinion that matters to me.”

“If you meet my approval?” He blinked, feeling his head fizzling. Blood and warmth pooling in parts of his body that made him growl and purr and _rut_ against her. “My love, I’ve never seen your equal.”

Her long mess of dark brown hair had been twisted and tousled into a loose bun. Tendrils escaping to curl about her chin. Dance about sooted lashes and flicks of her triangle shaped ears.

They had wrapped her in a dress of deep, vibrant violet and G’raha vaguely understood now Tataru’s insistence to dress him trappings of silver, black and amethyst. To match her and the swirl of her always alluring eyes. Mysterious and enrapturing.

Fabric pulled off her shoulders to showcase the arc of her elegant neck and shoulders. Made of glittering gems captured in starlight, a gauzy material that encircled her curves and gave him _delicious_ glimpses of the valley between her breasts. The slope of her hips. The curve of her long calves. The rest of the material fanned out behind her in a train of voided twilight. Lavender and winks of shattered stars.

_Warrior of Darkness._

Even now she was to be his ruin and salvation.

Her hands came up to cradle his jaw and he groaned in her mouth because he could already smell how very _wet and slick_ she was. How desperately he wished to just turn her around, rack up her skirts and _sheathe himself within her._ To cover her mouth with his fingers, feel her break apart around him. So that when they returned, everyone in that room would know who she belonged to. His seed dripping down her thighs to mark her as _his._

There was a rush welling upside inside him. Driven and instinctual and _primal._

“Where is this…” he growled through his plundering of her mouth. Swallowing her whimpers as if he was a man dying of thirst. She is only source of water. He would lap and drink at all parts of her. “ _Heat_ coming from? Kalea…let’s just forget this ridiculous soiree and…escape to a room.”

“Wh-what room…” she smiled through a sudden whine. If she kept rutting against his leg as she did, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. The mental image of taking her from behind flashing through him again. Harder and faster and _stronger_ than before. Pressed against the wall at her back. His name to be a prayer from her lips.

“We’re…in…a god’s damn castle…” he panted into the curve of her neck. “Take your pick…though the wall is my preference…”

“Ra-Raha!” she keened, ears pressed flat to her head. The scent from his arousal flooding into her skin. Sending heat and need and _overwhelming desire_ drowning her. “I…I’m…”

But, Krile’s voice would cascade around the corner. Calls for Kalea and G’raha to join them at once. For it wouldn’t be polite for them to dawdle in hallways and she knew _exactly what would happen, if she left them alone._ Not to mention, they’d already spent far too much time getting ready for this blasted event. What would the Garlemond political entourage say if the Warrior of Light arrived with a rippled dress and peppered skin filled with blooming love bites? And for Twelve’s sake – what was wrong with him!

“G’raha!” the diminutive Scion stomped out a foot, while Kan-E-Senna tried to stifle her lightened giggles with the back of her hand. “Do not make me come and _find the two of you!_ Seven hells…please do not. And I will **not** enter that room without the Warrior of Light.”

G’raha hissed. Aether and curling flashes of his red-hot gaze. He knew she was right – of course she was right but he couldn’t help himself. Biological surges made a living thing; roaring and vicious from their mating bond. Snagging them tighter together. Subconscious rolls and snaps and…

Kalea’s screams were muffled by his mouth. Vision shattering as she broke apart. Crashing hard and white hot. G’raha’s possessive growls echoing in her ears.

A pop when his wet lips pulled from hers.

“Kalea! Tell that foolish boy to keep his hands to himself and come along. Or we shall sit him next to Jenomis cen Lexentale, and he’ll never get another word in all evening!”

“When did you turn into such a mothering figure Krile?” G’raha laughed as he appeared from the shadowed hallway. His larger hand woven into Kalea’s. Their skin crafted in sharp shafts of moonlight. “And I am afraid your threats might be for naught, since the last I saw of Jenomis he was deep into the Redborn and trying to convince the minstrels for a rousing round of ‘ _Eyes on Me._ ”

Kalea smiled when they drew next to the assembled faces, everything seeming perfectly at ease. If not for her eyes being incredibly bright. Glittering and swirls of lavender, shot with levin. G’raha’s warm palm bleeding along hers.

“Forgive us for making you wait,” Kalea hummed, her cheeks slightly flushed and rounded. “The castle is much larger and complex than I remember it.”

“Spare me the details,” Krile shook her head, fluffing out her yellow dress. Brushing her curls away from her cherub cheeks. “Just come along.”

Urianger pulled Kan-E-Senna back into whispered voices and Krile mumbled under her breath, though there was little bit to it. G’raha found his rumbling laugh, the sound bright and joyful as the cherry color of his hair. It made Kalea’s heart swell to see it. To hear it. The column of his neck now opened from the restraining buttons. His plush lips curling over white teeth.

This utterly handsome thing that she adored.

“Also,” he chuckled and leaned near to mumble his smoldering grin into her ear. “I can still _smell you._ This will be…intoxicating.”

She blushed, the most beautiful bloom of color on her cheeks. But, her coy smile dragged up his handsome form. From foot to the top of his cherry head. A single finger running across his lip, one that he toyed through a gleaming grin and a flick of his tongue.

“Only for you,” was her replying whisper. Softness and heat tangled in the tonal qualities. Her eyes were alive in the refracted light of the soiree’s doors. G’raha, for what would be the thousandth time, gave praise that he now walked this star. That fate decreed him another chance to love this glittering celestial body at his side. Woven fingers and a gravitational pull that he would always fall into.

Lost into the event horizon since the first moment they met.

“Will you dance with me?” she asked and turned over to look at him as the gates opened to offer than purchase. A flood of warm, yellow gold. She lighted alive like a halo. “When they begin the inevitable turn of drunken merriment?”

“As often as you’ll have me.” His double entendre wasn’t lost on her. Neither was the predatory smolder that glinted about her gaze. Alluring flashes of violet.

“Forever, Raha. That’s how long I want.”

He blinked and parted his mouth. He wanted to reply, but words were made mute. Hollow and meaningless in the face of what emotions gave rise about his chest. To what facets had been made whole because of _her._

But, he would try. Pressing a kiss to the space between her thumb and finger. “Always.”

Kalea would feel the gaze, for it struck deeper than the others throughout the room. A weighted and heavy thing that prickled skin. Suffocating. It chocked at her throat to curl long, pale fingers.

Furious, she refused to let it gather the satisfaction of acknowledgment. Such a brooding and spoilt child.

“I see he finally found you,” Y’shtola snipped from crystal with untouchable proper etiquette. Layered lashes on dusted cheeks. Her smile was softened at the corners, and yet spoke aloud with resounding furor. “T’would seem the threads weave all the more tighter so that our bloodhound can follow. Handy to have in such dire situations. Though, what happens when _both of you are_ nowhere to be found?”

“We check the nearest broom closet?” Krile mumbled with a huff though it was lost to all ears save Kalea’s among clatter of roaring drink.

“Only make sure to knock twice,” the Warrior of light replied. Alight and flushed. Her fingers tightened on G’raha’s who glanced at her with curiosity. Taken from Alphinaud’s conversation for a moment. Raised brows on a handsome face.

Krile snorted, falling into acquiesced silence. Dropping the subject for the moment, instead slow side gazes to the growing shadow that loomed in the corner. For Zenos moved onto his hunt. Coy, turning grin and slow, purposeful steps. Sensual. His motions in each ligament calculated. For his quarry and prey had never been anything else save for the woman dressed in shattered stars.

Pricks that snatched up his spine. Set of nails that dug into bone; setting his hair to end. Tail tight. Ears pressed to his head. G’raha _growled._ Lip pulling over teeth and flash of canines that the Garlean could see, even over heads of revelry.

“Fortify thineself and partake in an air of calm. For as thou can see, he is on the move,” Urianger gave his warning with measures of tranquility equal to statues of stone.

Kalea brushed hair from the bare skin at her neck. Drifted eyes that closed, without a bother for the predator that stalked her. Zenos continued, infuriated to be so casually disregarded to his quarry. The seas of his subordinates breaking under his heel. Water splashed across the face of rock.

Vaguely there was music, but G’raha could hear only the rushing in his own ears. Eyes turned to the color of wine that would spill upon the floor. Flames smoldered within the confines of his gaze. Roared to a pyre; the awakening of primal protection that was birthed from the love of the woman by his side.

Jealous and possessive it arose with vengeance; a lion to stake and take their claim. It was all he could do to stem the flow of a tide colored red.

Kalea squeezed his hand again and he drew closer to himself. His narrowed, silted eyes becoming something akin to normalcy. If only for the moment.

“And there you would finally arrive. You would have kept us all waiting for diplomatic standstills, all for the sake of conversations with meaningless rabble.”

She offered him a mere turn of the head. Glancing up, under lashes that shadowed the storms kept confined to her gaze. His grin was never anything less than sensual and carnivorous.

“Zenos yae Galvus,” she said evenly. Monotones that were a juxtaposition to the look she leveled to the Emperor of Garlemald. “I am told you are to thank for this illustrious event?”

“Indeed,” he responded. Swollen and heady with pretension. “For who could resist such an offer to barter with Garlemald? Alliance leaders, tradesman, _Scions_ …Vows of cease fire are simple enough to give. Hardly presenting of an arduous duel. Political strategies make for senseless warfare.”

“Since your majesty is open to such an occasion,” Alphinaud took the opportunity to break through with his refined voice, forged for statecraft. “Then perhaps we can sit down to –“

“I am not concerned with the makings and working of diplomatic tedium,” Zenos sighed with bored overlays. “Let that be discussed among the gravel beneath the feet. To those more concerned with words, rather than action. My one and _only friend…_ if we are to see this sluggish and puerile event continue – then the Warrior of Light must favor Garlemald with a dance. For I would speak in private, tis only such a matter for your ears.”

He extended a hand. One to couple the flash about his eyes. Flat smiles that curled into something licentious. He would present an offer she dared not decline. Pride and victory at the corner of his mouth. For courtly battles such as these moronic affairs he could win without a cost.

Vaunting glances to the red-haired man to her side.

“Very well,” Kalea replied. Brows finding a furrow. “I hope you would present to me a challenge, for Garlemald will only have one. I am otherwise engaged.”

The answering, growing grin was all teeth. “One shall be enough.”

Her fingers went into his, but only after they tangled in G’raha’s. Her affection bleeding out into the last touches of his palm. It gave him the last remnants of strength to hold onto his snarls. Caught and trapped in his throat. Though, frays of his control, lay about in tatters. A rushing in his ears see her move from his side into the shadow of that monster. The creature that wore the eyes of _Emet-Selch._

“And so we find ourselves together at last,” Zenos spoke in a voice that was rough; sharp edges meant to cut her open and bleed. His large hand found an easy, perfect curve at her waist. Tightening knuckles against gossamer fabric. “Long have I waited for this moment.”

“Truly?” she snapped through a tight jaw. Stepping into easy, fluid movements where they battled for lead. A perfect synchronization of spins and turns. Silken fabric and jangled metal. “I do not think I have given you a single thought. I have met your predecessor after all. I find you pale in comparison.”

His chuckle was both rapacious and lascivious. Bringing her into the planes of his massive chest, even as they spun. She wondered if the fingers on her back would bruise. Their strength pressed harsh against her muscle. He would mark her with violence if he couldn’t get her to relent.

“You have become dull in your complacency then,” he replied. Dipping his head down low to share their secrets. His hair falling from his shoulder like a sheet of gold. Her furious gaze set levin into the air between them. He licked his lips. “Nothing has presented to you a challenge. We have always been the same, you and I. Kindred spirits, set adrift in this dull and subfusc existence. This _must be rectified._ ”

“I remember once,” Kalea began voice all coated and wrapped in storm and frost. “When we stood in a menagerie under the shadow of primals and you asked me a question. If I would accept you, friend and confidant. Did you forget my answer? Or am I to remind you?”

Zenos laughed. A noise that sounded as if it was raked over gravel. “And still, you would continue to prove me right. We cannot be, anything other than what we are. Judges and jurors of who would be granted both life and death. To take the shallow mutterings of the wise and widdle their teachings to single strokes. How _exhilarating…”_

“Though,” another glimmer of flashing teeth. “I sense another architect of design from you. As waft and as potent as the violence that would breed from your soul. The eikon-slayer smells of _heat.”_

Kalea hissed. A pull of full lips over sharpened teeth. Ears flattened to the curls of her dark hair. The rumbling chuckle, vibrated through her flesh. His tongue passed over the shape and outline of his mouth. He tasted the air and groaned aloud. Pleasurable tones turned into vile mutterings that made her want to retch.

“Poor conversational tastes for a party, _your Excellence._ ” He dipped her in sways of fabric and curves of her spine. Fingers splayed on the spaces there. Bows into her elegant neck. “Perhaps you should stay upon the topics of martial tactics and boorish professions of twisted philosophical erudition. Do not speak on subjects you know nothing of.”

“I told you once long ago that man should fight for the joy of it,” Zenos’s face split into a grin that turned him mad. Wide eyes betraying their own feralness. For he drank such a scent in with extortionate gulps. Bobs at his throat; a column of pale samite. “A merciless existence upon this dead star – we alone given forethought and clarity to take and embrace the violence that might make humanity feel _alive._ To _breed_. Never have I thought of such a thing before, but such _savagery_ would prove the most glorious conquest…if I would take this heat of yours and _dominate._ Tis a delicious endeavor to think of. I do not think I would become bored if I could make you _scream._ For what better version of violence would there be, than a meeting of flesh?”

Something rippled at Kalea’s skin. Raw. A haze that seemed, not the color of her own gaze – but, rather the lover who guarded and watched from across the room. Still, the furiosity that snapped in pulsing, arching waves was all of her own making. A virulence she bit down in her mouth.

“You are _vile_ ,” she bit out. Dropped emphasis on each word. The facets of her own plastered smile cracked like crystal. She felt the pads of his fingers tighten again to her waist.

“And yet, what is this flush about your skin? Such a heady, heavy concoction. The Huntress should deserve to partake in the lapped drink of prey. To be made… _subservient_ after the chase. However, tis the pity. For…” he leaned down and his mouth brushed the curve of her ear. “ _You also smell like that cat.”_

Kalea wrenched herself out of Zenos’s looming grasp. Tosses of hair and fabric. The Warrior of Light fixed this lumbering princeling of Garlemald with a glare wrapped in violet and violent storm. A lioness that would be backed into a corner to show her teeth.

“Are we finished with our dance?” he simpered out. Extending that hand again. “Or perhaps…you would partake in another?”

“I told you,” Kalea growled and drew a few drawing eyes from the assembly. Mistruck warming chords, and whispered that curled over wine and beer. “I would be otherwise engaged. You will have to find a training dummy to _rut_ against.”

“Oh? Who would prove predator enough for you? My one and _only friend._ ” His question was madness about the corners of his mouth. Shuffles of wide eyes that snapped with cold fire.

“I am afraid, I have claimed Kalea for the remainder of the evening. You will have to forgive my impoliteness, but I am a rather _territorial creature_ when it comes to the Warrior of Light. A fault of mine, to be sure.”

G’raha Tia was not beholden of the height that made Zenos into a tower of savagery and warmongering. But, the pulse of curling aether always spoke of a man so much more than what he was. Even, in the guise of this youthful flesh and perfectly coiffed cherry colored head, was a raptorial soul that gave Zenos pause. Furious eyes that glowed with the taste and sight of blood.

Dark as red wine.

“Another hunter?” the man cooed and smiled as if his name-day shall come early. If he cared about such triviality. “Another, who would toss their credentials into the ring for the chase of the _Warrior of Light?_ Oh, but this is instead a delight! I would welcome and embrace this competition. This, hunt where the victor would take all the spoils! Leaving nothing save base facets and flesh to be consumed and desired. For what is man, if not always in pursuit of a _prize?_ ”

Kalea stared, dark and furious. A rumble about her spine and skin that would not relent. But, to look at the hard barricade of G’raha’s shoulder and find it unmoving between her and the Emperor of Garlemald, pooled heat to the waiting sea of her stomach. She would burn like a lit pyre once he touched her. She could feel it. Like the ache in the bones before a strike of levin.

“G’raha,” she began and watched as he gave only flics of recognition. Ears and lit eyes. Lit like coals in a hearth. “Do not waste your breathe on madness.”

“Madness and sanity are often coupled hand to hand, my _one and only friend._ Idiocy the author of many a grand scheme, for the rabble to not perceive the wisdom in it. And I would see all my enlightened plans come perfect into fruition. One way…or another.”

“Kalea,” G’raha would be unmoving from his met stare to Zenos. A waging war betwixt them. A red-coated tiger that would snap at the probing hands of a golden-crested Ufiti. “Let us be away from this place.”

She was the one that took his hand first. Woven fingers to offer some measure of balm to the ragged and roaring pieces of his enraged heart. He followed with slight hesitation, a maneuver around tables and drunken bodies. Push. Pull. Like obstacles rendered a barricade by sea legs. The crowds smiling, laughing faces became a blur.

There was a roaring and tuneless crescendo in his ears that perhaps gave indication that the music had started again. He could not be entirely sure; the blood rush over his churning aether never relented till Kalea had pulled him from the room. Never straying eyes from the monster watching their backs. Zenos smile was chiseled into stone till the door shut against it.

Moonlight. Starlight. A small remembrance of a world and warrior of darkness before G’raha found his mouth slanted over Kalea’s. Blood boiling. To stake a claim and lay rest this moronic idea that she would be _anyone else’s._

To mate. To breed. To _fuckfuckfuck…_

“What was it…” she moaned through a bite at his lower lip. Smiles and fingers ranking through his hair, because she _needed this._ Just as much as he did. To be declared _ruined_ because of _G’raha._ “That Krile mentioned…about a…broom closet?”

He growled his reply into her neck. Bites under his teeth that made her shiver and pulse in his hands. “I won’t open for anyone knocking.”

“Good.”

He took her hand and tugged her without mercy down the hall. Candlelight and pale shafts of moonbeams given their only audience before sanctuary was found. G’raha pulled her in quickly, locking the door with such force he think he may have broken the handle.

“I am…not…going to be gentle,” his hands hand woven into the waves of her dark hair. Tresses released like a waterfall to his waiting fingers. He wrapped it about knuckles and _pulled._ Swallowing her noises with tongue and teeth. “I would have you Kalea. Only I can bring you to _break.”_

“Who said there would be anyone else?” he could see her own teeth flash in the dark. The lit core of eyes that blazed living violet. “I would be dominated by no one,” Kalea snapped out loud into that whispered space between them, but her bite fell like water when his hand found the curve of her jaw. His eyes looked down to _burn her_ in the dark. “Except by you.”

“I wanted to take you right on the floor of that hall,” he said fumbling with the length of her skirts at last. Pretense and preamble thrown to the faded whispers between them. He grabs her hips and crushes against his own bulging waist. “To bend you over and let the world see that you would be _mine.”_

“Mhm,” she wraps a leg around his hip. Sound breaking when his hands tear apart her gossamer dress to bare her breasts to his waiting mouth. He quenches his thirst around them, wearing and breaking them apart to make her keen aloud in a haze. “I would…have let you.”

“ _Wicked White…”_

He has no patience except for this. Except to drag his tongue down the length of her body and part her dress’s fabric. Wrecked and rent after his hands found it. Gems that were reflected in her eyes that fluttered closed. On the planes of his face that crafted lighted freckles. She is soaked and wet and _dripping_ when G’raha presses his mouth to her core.

All of it…only for him.

Here was not a place he had visited often; their knowledge of each other’s bodies still learning and crafting the language of unspoken dialogue, but G’raha was a quick study. As any dedicated pupil would be to a mastery they would give and profess their lives to, he read her swollen pearl through his lips. Deciphered the pants and utter debauched moans of the woman above him. Her fingers clutched to his hair. Tail wrapped around the solid pillar of his thigh.

His name the only mantra on her lips.

G’raha found breathing to be an unnecessary and frivolous thing as her legs twitched and bracketed his head. He chased after her release with rumbles and roars of his aether. As a couerl would overwhelm and pin alive their prey; he watches while her hips roll and writhe against his mouth. Tangled he would capture her orgasm with his teeth. With claws outstretched. His fingers disappeared to their knuckles inside her and she screamed. 

“R-Raha,” shakes of her limbs and he would make her _mindless._ “Raha… _please…”_

There was a heel on his back that pressed into the hard muscle of his flesh. When he looked up at her, his smile dripped with her very aether. “Please… _what?_ ” he asked.

“F…Fuck me,” the Warrior of Light demanded and pleaded. Ready to mold him and be shaped anew in return. “P-please Raha…”

He growled his affirmation and decided to take up his earlier desire to have her against the wall. Standing like the predator she had made him into. “I will finish inside you, my love.” He cooed. Gentle words even as he spun her around to press hard along wood and stone. Fumbling with trousers and buckles before splaying his hands over her own. Mouth and teeth and breath against the curve of her neck.

“I would have everyone know whose scent has melded into your own.”

He slides in as easily as if she was made for him. Perhaps she was. Tight. Warm. But his fingers move to swirl about her mouth when his hips snap into her. They choke out her wanton moan. Her unabashed screams. He won’t last long the way she writhes and bends. With how wet he’s made her.

He wrecks her. Ravishes her. Pistons in and out with aggression that borders on his own brand of violence, but Kalea relishes it. Swallows him and runs her tongue about his fingers. Arches of the back so that he might press into that space that only had allowed him. His other hand spreads over her back and replaces the dusting of markings that Zenos made with his own bright blooms. His open lips wearing at her skin.

She is flushed and malleable. His movements become quivers of animalistic and primal spasms. And when all he can see is the melding of their colors, the long elegant shape of her bare back and the clouded gaze she gives him over her shoulder, G’raha makes one last press of his hips. Snapped up to watch her mouth open in broken, quivering shapes. Her releases pulses and barrels over him like a tidal wave; enough to drown him in an oblivion.

Slick and seed and aether released to run alive inside his lover’s body.

He doesn’t draw from her for a long time. Instead they struggled to catch their breath together. His kisses turned feather soft against the jutted bones of her spine. The gentle slope of her neck. He mumbles his unwavering affection to her dilapidated skin and for a small, uneasy moment he wonders if he was too much.

He opens his mouth, but finds it occupied with her lips as she turns. Ravished dress and tangled mess of dark hair. Her eyes have never looked more alive when she pulls back to wrap her arms around his shoulders. His large hands settled on her waist.

“Let’s escape home,” she whispers her conspiracy with bright teeth. Starshine reflected under lashes. “There is far more you have yet to give declaration to.”

“And, what of the party?” one corner of his mouth is beginning to pull up, but he can already feel her gathering aether. Ready to wink into portals where roads lead back to their bed at the Rising Stones.

“I have been captured,” was her reply as her mouth found his again. “And to the victor should go the spoils.”

**Author's Note:**

> 17 pages of this utter drivel. A one shot brought on by discussion about how possible recent updates would allow us to journey into Garlemald and everything snowballed from there. I blame "thepapernautilus" for this...


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